


An Ever-Fixed Death

by theStarfly



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: (canon compliant), Aromantic Newt Scamander, Asexual Newt Scamander, Credence is of Legal Age, Fix-It, Gen, LITERALLY, M/M, Minor Character Death, Multi, Newt Fixes Character Death, Pre-Relationship, Protective Newt Scamander, Pseudo-necromancy, Soul Bond, divination-ish, emotionally guarded Newt, good!Original Percival Graves, pseudo-soul bond, seer!newt, that's what Newt does, unknown spiritual connection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-09-01 14:56:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8628700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theStarfly/pseuds/theStarfly
Summary: Newt has always seen deaths, has always done what he can to stop them or ease their way.  But one death persistently calls to him, and he needs to know why.  He can only hope he won't be too late, when never knowing when a vision originates or even where is the norm, and this one is no exception.---I've tagged underage just in case; by the time there is any non-solo sexual content, Credence is of age, but there is some underage masturbation because, seriously, teenager with Graves touching him like that.  All is consensual, and there is NO SEXUAL ABUSE.  Just mildly dubious manipulation as seen in the movie.





	1. Prologue

Newt is not quite so naive or innocent as he seems.

  
He's seen things— horrible things— some he had been unable to prevent, and some he hadn’t cared to. Some he had tried, but even he was unable to predict each occurrence— death is tricky like that. An ever-fixed point fluctuating within a sea of other fixed points, some related, some unrelated, with no real way to tell which are which, fixed or unfixed; no rhyme or reason to which might positively affect the outcome versus that which tumbles everything into chaos, yet solves nothing.

  
Stepping in to prevent a death is the one thing that gives Newt life, though, so he has to try. Whether the variability of circumstance will have him making the situation better or worse is as up in the air as the time-instance any given vision will be portraying. Snippets, all of them, unknown, unplaced, drifting endlessly through the stream of his mind.

  
Causing a death, however, is an intimately more complex feeling. Standing by in horror while observing his influence having no effect whatsoever does not give life, although arguably, nor does it take any. The little girl from Sudan yet plagued his mind. Could he have done anything to save her? Or was it, as some might suggest, fated that she was to die that day, circumstances be damned?

  
Glimpses of her death, screams of rage and fear ripping from her tiny body had haunted him for weeks before the event, and he’d found himself searching all places that could possibly match the tiny town in his mind. Keeping a magical child locked away was not often spoken of in such places, and though he’d met all manner of creatures throughout Africa, it was only when he had reached Sudan and heard the circulation of whispered rumors of a curse upon one village in particular that he knew he had found her. But for what? A split soul, an obscurus outside of a body dead and finally laid to rest, only the shadow of anger still barely living? And who knew if he had compounded her final suffering by removing it entirely, rather than leaving it attached but distant when he'd had the chance? Over and over he ran the memory through his mind, comparing it to the vision— she had seemed in such pain, yet any differences he could find were negligible. Had he helped her final moments? Or was everything futile in this world?

Time is funny like that, too. A seen death in a sea of non-deaths unseen is often as frustrated as the knowledge of an incurable illness guaranteed to take the host, with an unknown period to put affairs in order. Useful to a point, but only if you time everything properly and don't wait too long to tell those around you how you feel. Useful to a point, until it cripples you and keeps you from enjoying the time you may or may not have left.

  
No point in knowing or not-knowing if he’d made a difference, Newt had always said. He always knew something of death, and whether he acted or not, that fact would not change. Death was a part of him as much as breath was of life. Time was a part of death as much as it was a way of moving forward, rushing toward an inevitable end.

 

 -------

 

  
Fleeting glimpses of death meandered around him like vaguely hungry dogs with an equally hungry master— always hopeful, but not expecting much.  
And for years, the same wisp had curled from the rubble of his dreamscapes, following each vision of death as though it were its own, yet... somehow, Newt knew it was unrelated. This, too, was as consistent as the hunger of dogs.

 

\-------

 

Shaw's death, he had seen after the girl's. He made note in his mind with a mild hint of astonishment at the power flowing through the scene of chaos, and filed it away, intending never to think of it again. Some politician preaching conformity was of no concern when a child’s life was on the line. There were no hints of date beside the vague notion in the man’s head that his final speech was one of success; whether real or perceived was unapparent. It mattered not. The girl’s was dated, well-marked with annotations of URGENT and NOW.

 

But the one that came before Shaw, before the girl, and impulsively at points before, during, and after... the one was ruthless. A woman, cruel, cold, yet somehow surprised at her fate. Neck broken before she hit the floor, but the signs were not of physical violence. She screeched at him in the way that only visions could, without words or actions, but with _intent_.

  
He found he did not care for this woman any more than he did the woeful politician, had no interest in stepping in, and besides, her home seemed as that which could have been from the distant past, for all that he knew. Yet she unrelentingly fell from a great height, distance and timing of screams changing from vision to vision, ending all the same in death. Always violent. Always cold.

 

Persistently, something flickered in the corners, drawing forth his interest far more than her fear and righteous anger. But, he could never... quite... see it. That wisp, constant in its appearance as a wisp and nothing more than a wisp, was somehow connected to this woman, constant only in her death and nothing more.

 

And so, when an insistent, unexplained tug dragged him from his sorrow and despair, beckoning him to New York during a dangerous time, he took notice.  And with the wisp flitting around the edges of his sight, the screams and scent and feel of the woman’s death prickling on his skin even from far across open waters, he followed without hesitation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This could be considered a "prologue" to the story.
> 
> Edited/Updated on April 7, 2017 for clarity of speech. Content-wise, nothing has changed.


	2. New York, New York

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> City of Destruction  
> \---  
> A first glimpse at Newt's creatures  
> \---

New York was far more interesting than he had expected. So many oblivious to their own pain, small glimpses of lives led happily despite the sentence hanging over so many heads. The portents for war held straight, yet, buoyant on the tides of a recent victory, the citizens continued to float on, taking no notice. Curious.  
Coated in darkness, certain buildings carried their upcoming destruction like a badge of pride, and Newt fortified them as he passed before they crumbled, repairing what he could before it could dampen the pervading sense of, if not happiness, then at the very least, victory. Humans were easy like that.

\--- 

He had just arrived from customs, and with no place in specific to go, he allowed the current of bodies to pull him along until he found himself drawn into a small crowd gathered at the steps of what seemed to be a bank, and there… there he saw her. Still reeking of her own demise, as she had in his visions, too oblivious in her hatred of the “unnatural” to notice, she was followed by souls he could not feel dying with his senses but could see with his eyes as any muggle could. Smothered beneath her grip, broken like the wand on her doomed flag. Children.

Involuntarily, he felt his own grip tighten on the handle of his suitcase. Children should not have the hands of death ticking over their heads so soon, shouldn’t be aware of it, no matter how much time they had still left. Children should be playing, if not on brooms and with toy wands, then at the very least with balls kicked gleefully down empty streets and dirt smudged across their foreheads from fringe haphazardly pushed aside. Even the oldest boy was not so old that he should yet have felt the full weight of adulthood on his shoulders, but his gaze rested so intense on Newt that he had to look away. These children were alive, but. They looked as though they’d rather be dead.

He winced as a slight chitter by his feet announced that the snuffler had once more escaped, and was ready to make a beeline for… ah, yes, the old man by the column, who, while he was certainly old, had at least three more weeks on his clock from the look of the aura shimmering around his fingernails.  
_Tssst_ \- he tried to quietly dissuade the small black creature, but instead succeeded only in drawing the attention of the woman from his visions.

“You!” she gasped, eyes wide in the grasp of mania, and Newt cringed, avoiding her eyes as he searched the crowd for his creature. The man still had time,dammit; this was why he’d kept them in the case the entire trip. Too many suspicious deaths aboard a boat, no matter how big, and a fairly twitchy recluse were never a good combination, no matter that the twitch was natural, and the deaths more or less pre-ordained.  
“You,” she repeated, “Friend, are you a seeker? A seeker after truth?” she gazed at him plaintively, obviously awaiting an answer, and he couldn’t resist the smirk that curled across his lips as he answered.

“Ah, no, no ma’am. More of a chaser, really. Which… excuse me. I’ve got to.. Uh. Chase…” he clutched his briefcase in one hand and held his jacket closed as he dodged through the crowd, hoping to… “Merlin’s bollocks,” he cursed under his breath as he neared the man, whose soul was now nestled inside the pouch of the escaping snuffler. He kept his gaze forward as though the thing he chased was inside the bank, as the snuffler likely already was. There was nothing he could do for the poor fellow now but catch the snuffler before it took anyone else ever-so-slightly too soon.

No wonder the woman was so adamant in his visions. She swathed herself in metaphysical death and decay like the warmest of threadbare blankets; it stood to reason true death would follow close, waiting its turn.

\--- 

Inside the bank the comings and goings were so lively it was difficult to reconcile the feeling that the death number was as high as it seemed. No, something very strange was going on in New York City… something catastrophic was soon to come. A dark force. He could feel it, and he would stop it. All of these people couldn’t be allowed to die.  
He sank down hard on the cold bench in the waiting area, trying to catch his breath from the sudden energy sap. Why were all of these people—?

A flash of a man going into anaphylactic shock hit him with the intensity of imminence, and his eyes flashed open at the touch of a hand on his shoulder. It was unexpected anaphylaxis, his mind provided helpfully, never been allergic before. He looked up into a grinning face, energy friendly, if tired, but full of life, and frowned. The man didn’t seem put off.  He extended a hand. “Jacob Kowalski. What’re you in for?”

At Newt’s blank look, the man blanched a bit, but thrust his hand more firmly into Newt’s personal bubble. “It… get it? Because we’re stuck waiting here for bail from this misery?”

Newt’s continued stare finally caused the man to falter, and he brought his hand back to his side. “Because you’re… you’re here for a loan, right?” Newt frowned more as he examined the dark splotch shimmering at his neck, just tucked under the man’s ill-fitting collar. To anyone else, a badly-placed suck mark, but…  
“… yes. Uh, would you mind if I just…?” he gestured with his head a little, and when the man, Kowalski, incredulous, tilted his neck on instinct, Newt grabbed his shoulder and examined it closer. Poor man had a nasty murklupp bite, and where on Morgana’s green earth he’d gotten one of those… he shook his head. No wonder. It had likely been festering long enough his luck would be nonexistent at this point.

“Hmm,” he murmured, fumbling in his pocket, one hand on the increasingly fidgety man’s neck. “What’s it for?” He asked as he kept his hold tight, uncapping the quill with the antivenom with his teeth, “the loan, I mean?” If he could time it just right, the snuffler would arrive any moment, and—

“Th- the loan?” the man squeaked. 

Newt nodded. “What’s it for?” he repeated, distracted as he held the spine in one hand. Never hurt to keep a couple extra around with his line of sight.

“Oh, um,” the man shifted uncomfortably, but seemed aware that Newt meant to help. “You’re a bit close there, buddy. Uh. But. My bakery. Got back two years ago, and let me tell ya, pal. The canning just sucks the life outta ya, ya know? And I promised my grandma; her recipes are— machines just can’t do what I can do, ya— ah!”

Newt had plunged the quill into the man’s neck and grabbed the snuffler in one fell swoop, and as the man’s luck returned to him in a rush that would leave him lightheaded and seeing white specks for a few moments more, slipped the bit of occamy eggshell he’d found at a ransacked nest as an apology. Newt then slipped behind a pillar and disapparated before the man could get his bearings. He would likely seem a fever dream in the state that the man had been in, and wouldn’t be remembered clearly.  It was for the best, though.  Anyone who encountered Newt upon their near-death was better served to never see him again.  And he hoped upon hoped to never see them again, either.  It worked out to their mutual benefit.

\--- 

When he reapparated a safe distance from the bank and the sap of death within, he gave the snuffler a good shake by the scruff of its neck. He’d taken too long with Kowalski to return the soul to the old man outside unless he wanted to raise a zombie not ten feet from the lunatic witch-hater (and what would she do with that evidence before her, eh?), but it was the principle of the thing.

“For the last time,” he emphasized with one last shake as he all but threw the snuffler back into the briefcase. “Paws off what doesn’t belong to you. Just because you lost yours…” he grumbled as he latched the case and locked it for good measure, before pulling himself together to wander back down the street, hoping to be brought toward a place to stay with this pull of the throng, and not to another storm of destruction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, obviously, taking some liberties with what creatures Newt keeps with him. Having plain fantastic creatures just didn't seem right for the type of person Newt is in this one. So. Thus me futzing around with some of the pre-existing ones to make them my own, plus there will be a couple recognizable oldies-but-goodies.
> 
> No worries, Jacob will be just fine, and get his bakery, but he's also not the type Newt would feel as though he deserved to keep in this story.  
> \---  
> Edited for clarity of language on April 9, 2017. Content remains unchanged.  
> 


	3. Noticing While Unnoticed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unnoticed by Newt, someone has noticed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It seems as though Credence/Graves was just sort of... waiting to happen, and pounced on the opportunity. So, it's looking like this is heading toward Credence/Graves/Newt, but never fear! In this 'verse, Newt is and will remain asexual.  
> \---

Unnoticed to Newt as he was carried away from the scene at the meeting of New Salemers, he had caught more than simply the attention of the oppressive woman from so many of his more violent visions.

  
Although his head had remained cast downward, trying and failing to hide behind too-short bangs and to make his tall form as compact as possible, the boy two steps up from the woman followed Newt's retreat with intelligent and interested eyes. He had followed Newt's gaze and noticed the creature; he was good at being unnoticed while observing, and discerned much that others failed to detect. He knew that Newt was something special. Newt couldn't have known, couldn't have felt it with the unending crush of death around him, but this boy had no such ability. He felt only as crushed as he always had below the oppressive thumb of the woman he considered his mother, never having known the one related to him by blood. (And in quiet moments when he managed solitude, he liked to imagine that maybe she would have been less horrible, would have reprimanded him as he deserved with swats around the ears rather than belts to his hands. He never imagined long; it made returning to reality all the worse.)

  
The boy, Credence Barebone, had felt it, a spark of connection rushing through him, a silent screaming in his head that this man was important-- don't lose him. He wondered if this was what Mr. Graves had felt when he saw the child in his vision, the effect it would have on the world. He wondered if, somehow, Mr. Graves had been wrong, and the power lived in the form of the odd man with the odd accent who seemed in such a hurry. He wondered if he should tell his mentor what he had felt.

  
But he didn't follow that train of thought too far. The clenching in his stomach that came with the thought of sharing, well, either of them, really, was enough to snap him back to the present, forcing his eyes back to the dirty ground in the hopes that no one would notice him here, about to lose his meager lunch to the churning pit in his belly.

  
Credence Barebone didn't have much in life to be thankful for, but he was thankful for Mr. Graves' hands on his face, comfortingly warm against his always-too-cold skin. He was thankful for the opportunity the man represented, and the care the man showed him when no one else even pretended to care, if they even noticed him at all. He was especially thankful that he believed in him, trusted his ability to help.

  
But this new man, with his intense eyes that tried so hard to hide any semblance of care that still escaped in concealed flashes... he wanted to keep that vision to himself, at least a little while longer.

 ---

When Credence returned home that night, thoughts of the awkward man with the strange accent plagued his dreams to the point he feared he would shake apart in his sleep and wake in the ruins of the closest to home he could easily remember (once he pushed aside the vague imaginings of cool hands on his warm forehead, and whispered words he couldn't quite have understood as a child. Sometimes he entertained the hope that those hands would return to take him away from this place, would hold him as he  _did_ tear the damnable building to shambles from the safety of a warm embrace.)

Somehow, he knew it would never happen, though, the remembered heat and delirium and severe loneliness too quick to reassert themselves in his mind. When those memories tried to resurface, he had to distract himself in any way possible, or he really would surrender to the emptiness he always knew filled his insides, but only sometimes acknowledged.

Tonight, with bright copper curls chasing his tangled thoughts and making him wish to disappear until he could find them in this city, consequences be as damned as he, he turned to the other damning thoughts unrelated to magic and witches and spellcraft bent on sending him under the belt. It didn't take much effort to extend his thoughts of Mr. Graves' warm, strong hands past the point they'd ever reached in the shadows of the alley, didn't hurt his soul as much to hide the imaginings in the dark of his room. He was nearly certain that Mr. Graves would be just as accepting in this oddity as he had been the wish for teaching, likely as willing to help Credence's fumblings in this as he would be any inkling of magic he might possess— with the way their touch sizzled across Credence's skin even hours after they parted, he couldn't be the only queer one in their queerest of pairings. The heat he felt in Mr. Graves' eyes on his, even while he kept his own gaze cast toward too-small shoes was too sharp a heat to be imagined.

No, this fear was not borne of shame, but a simple one of rejection, and he didn't want to lose the man as a mentor once he finally found the child. Impropriety was more important to avoid than his own feelings were to embrace, at least in Credence's mind, and even so, these imaginings in the dark of his own bed surrounded by a sleeping house had never hurt anyone.

His hands had been weeks healed since he had last failed Ma; she'd been surprisingly even-tempered recently, after that attack she seemed to have forgotten. He wouldn't complain; free of pain, he was able to take his length in his right hand and bite into the fist of his left as he held back a moan, instead simply allowing a sigh to hiss through clenched teeth as he imagined another hand, wider, less calloused, in place of his own.

He moved slowly, gently, feeling the caress he could see in his mind's eye, Mr. Graves' arms enfolding him from behind as they stood together in a shadow, far out of sight of any no-maj who might pass, oblivious. Credence had often imagined such a meeting, imagined Mr. Graves' teeth buried in his shoulder, fist tight around Credence's exposed length while the man himself was fully clothed. Mr. Graves was too upstanding, too dignified to be marred by the dirt of the street; his clothes would be ruined by the muck that ran over cobbled paths should he take them off. Those imaginings were often violent in their intense need.

Tonight, though the alley was ever-present, too dangerous to imagine a place warm, inside, where he could even consider calling a man so strong and handsome his own, tonight he imagined something softer that had him gasping in breathy, heady sighs so different from the deep moans he usually had to fight himself to keep quiet.

 

  
The hand on his cock was, as always, firm, but with a hint of tenderness he'd never dared allow himself. As he buried himself in his fist, hunched forward in threadbare blankets, he could almost feel Mr. Graves' chin tucked over his shoulder, an arm wrapped around him from behind, holding him close.

The image, so intimate, so sweet, had him choking back near-sobs as he stroked himself, imagining the deep rumblings of "Credence... you are a very special young man" coursing through his very marrow and settling in the pit of his belly, stoking hot the embers he'd allowed to fade, and raising a blush to his cheeks. He could feel the man in his mind squeeze him as he squeezed himself, holding him close, and he came with a gasp into the deep teeth marks he had bitten into his index finger.

As he lay, splayed forward as he bent in half to catch his breath, he dared not imagine any closer intimacy than Mr. Graves tucking him back into his pants and cupping the side of his face, resting their foreheads together as he reminded him what a strong young man he was, and to just hold on a little bit longer.

Absently, he breathed in and held it, in an attempt to calm his heartbeat for sleep.

 

"You are such a good boy, Credence," came a thought in a vaguely familiar accented voice as he finally closed his eyes to sleep, imagined fingers gangly and hesitant brushing through his untidy hair.

 

  
And with a smile on his face that would have felt (old unused awkward wrong) had he even realized it was there, Credence drifted off to sleep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited for clarity on April 9, 2017. Chapter content remains the same.


	4. trust in a never-feathered thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newt trusts most in those who could easily bring him death, but choose to not.

Across town, Newt Scamander was having more difficulty wrangling his demons into some semblance of an orderly line toward the land of nod. The darkness of the city was not so much growing heavier as it was settling, oppressive, across his shoulders in a way that death hadn't felt in a long time. Usually, these days, it was an old friend, a thick coat that blanketed his shoulders with its weight but still kept him warm and dry. He had learned to use death like a shield, an umbrella from the emotional downpour of those around him.

\--- 

Tonight, though, in a building so soon condemned he almost hadn't been able to fortify it, Newt sat in the cheap hotel room and wondered when the emotions of others had gained such weight. He found himself shaking awake from dreamlike visions of the woman screeching noiselessly in his ear often enough that it was as though his life was a flashing zoetrope, real life flickering like the light between frames of moving stills. He was losing time; not enough that it affected anything, he could still carry the tune of the song on the hotel's phonograph without missing a beat, but split seconds were lost to visions of the woman, face scratched to decay.

And behind her, so many others, no where near as ( _quiet-loud_ ), but just as insistent in their presence. What in tarnation was going on in this city?

 ---

In the corner of the hotel room, consistent from one shaken moment to the next, a grey-black wisp hovered, flickering, coating the surface of the peeling, floral wallpaper.

\---

Newt couldn't take much more of not knowing, and he certainly would not know anything any sooner with no sleep.  
With the next awakening, he rocked himself to his feet, teetering from the balls of his toes to his heels for one moment before fiercely shaking his head, then again to fling wayward curls from his eyes, which he fixed on the suitcase.

Bugger the stairs in this state, but he really had no choice, and it was with a great clatter and even greater throbbing aches soon sure to bruise his damnably fair skin that he found himself sprawled on the cleared floor of his workshop, clutter long since relegated to countertops and shelves for this exact reason.  
He gave a sad excuse for a whistle, head thumped back against the hard wood, and was relieved that the swooping evil was used to his dramatic flailings, and knew what he meant. Without the strength to properly calculate dilution of the venom, he looked up at the face looming over him, sighing at the drool inching down the creature's beak, before making unsteady eye contact.

"I have to trust you with this," he shook himself awake, "we've been through a lot, I do," another shake, "I do trust you." The creature cocked its head as Newt slow-blinked up at it.

Newt began to let himself fade before a nasty thought drifted to the surface of his mind. "Do leave my brains intact," he managed to shake out, "won't you?" He patted the creature's wing as it mantled over him. "There's a good swooper. Mummy just," he yawned as the venom drooled over his face and began to take effect, "Mummy just needs a bit of a rest."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter edited for clarity of language on April 9, 2017 in preparation for what has been far too long in the make.  
> Content, as always, remains the same.  
> \---  
> Prepare for the coming apocalypse.   
> Gird thy loins and wait for dawn.


	5. Sleep is an Escape (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sleep can be an escape from many things. Newt sleeps like death to escape his dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 1: An Escape from Dreaming... an Escape from Death
> 
> \---
> 
> I apologize for the delay in update. My computer crashed shortly after my last chapter, and unfortunately my plans for the future of this fic were (surprisingly, for me) digital-only. With the release of the movie to blu-ray, however, I have renewed my excitement for this fic, just in time for Camp NaNo.
> 
> \---

Newt awoke with a grin flickering across his face, squashed against the floor as his mouth was, and crusted with drool at that, to the feeling of fresh air fluttering his fringe in light tickles against his brow. He felt more relaxed after a good night's rest than he had in ages; best sleep he'd had since he'd miserably failed to find the occamies in time, and before that, since he hadn't managed to save the young Sudanese girl from herself and the life-sentences of others.

After that day had passed into night, he had been awake for a week, haunted by visions of her screams as she allowed him to help her tear herself apart to keep from harming any others. Too many had gone before, even as ruthless as they were; she needed to be free.

 

\--- 

 

He'd tried to separate the thing that had been festering inside her, feasting on suppressed magic. It was too much for anyone, let alone a slight seven-year-old too young to have been conditioned to crave conformity, let alone twisted and shrunken to fit the narrow box of what was acceptable in the village she had so wanted to grow up a part of.

Even once he re-learned sleep, he was nightly awoken by the savagery of his own screams, hacking blood from a throat torn raw as he commenced channeling her rage and terror of longing even after death.

 

\---

 

And then, the occamies he had failed to save, minutes too late when he'd located the nest to find only one, tiny, half-formed chick yet breathing its last in pools and bubbles of blood.

He had killed the poacher with hoarse yells of wandless magic, hadn't even thought twice of ridding the world of its vile greed, but finally surrounded only by decay and death on all sides _as he always was, as he always would be, as all he ever brought to the world,_ he could go no further, broken down and fragile as the silver of cracked and trampled shells, and far, far less valuable. He had gently packed those shells into his suitcase, muggle-side out so he would bear the full brunt of their weight, and promised himself to use at least those for good. He could not keep them, was not worthy, but someone, somewhere could.

He had allowed himself to cry that night, blanketed by the silence of death deep in an unknown bamboo forest.

Every day was grey, and every night the same, since then, until the sharp cracks of black and white of visions and the tug of New York City finally reigned strong. He couldn't actually remember the last time he'd awoken refreshed, though waking slightly less tired than he'd gone to sleep had always been a relief.

 

\---

 

No, this morning, the fresh air and dreamless sleep had done him innumerable good. And wasn't that a thought to drive him back down into the depths, that his body, when ridded of nightmares, was not capable of even a single happy dream.

He heaved a sigh into the floorboard and rested a moment.

Sighed again and cracked open his eyes, gathered his wits for a moment, staring and counting the grooves of woodgrain in his dusty floor. He'd awoken with his cheek nearly meshed with the pattern far more frequently than he would care to admit, and he'd grown oddly fond of it. Usually, though, his floor was far less full of dust, kept specifically so for occasions such as this. He must have been more overtired recently than he had anticipated. No wonder he'd needed intervening aid.

_Thirty-two... thirty-three..._ the cracks had gotten wider. He'd have to check the charms after cleaning to ensure they weren't wearing off. Or was it already time for a reapplication? Time was a funny thing. Merlin only knew what he would do should the charms go full off and allow his creatures to... _wait._

 

His mind froze on the thought, teetering on the edge of a leap he was not yet awake enough to make. Please let him be wrong. For the love of all his creatures...

_Fresh... air?_

 

He jerked upright with a jolt that left his head throbbing and the world spinning, spit crusted painfully to his cheek. He made baleful eye contact with his swooping evil, still dutifully perched in the space beside where his head had rested, awaiting his potential death.

"Sally," he began, and allowed himself a momentary grin, quickly dropped, when the creature cocked its head at him, flicking its tongue.  "Sally, please tell me I closed the case when I stumbled down last night, and there's no chance of me feeling actual air currents from down here."

Tongue-flick.

"Tell me I'm not going to see what I'm expecting to see if I look up."

Nothing.

He was afraid to look, but ignoring it wouldn't make the damage any less. Nonetheless, he allowed himself a moment, before tilting his head back, eyes closed.

 

\---

 

_Always, death followed him like a well-trained but hungry pup, ready to be set loose at his first command, ready to escape the moment he was distracted. Always, he carried it over his shoulders, heavy, like the arm of an old friend, newly dead. Suffocating._

 

\---

 

The weight crushed back down.

He opened his eyes.

"Bugger..." he breathed softly, as he stared at the motel's crumbling tile ceiling, two stories up, through the wide open suitcase lid. "Bugger and beyond, that's no good."

His case was open, the motel in shambles.

Death ran free.


End file.
